LAUREL – The Northwest Mississippi Community College golf team wrapped up their fall season at the Laurel Country Club on Monday and Tuesday as they took part in the Bobcat Invitational, finishing in seventh place as a team and putting two golfers into the top 15 to end the season on a positive note.

With temperatures down around freezing on the first day, Northwest was in the middle of the pack with a 57-over 345 from the team, but they rallied back with the third lowest team score of the second day, posting a 317 to finish the tournament at 86-over, just four strokes out of fifth place.

"On day two we played much better," Head Coach Adam Payne said. "The weather conditions were 100 times better. Day one it was extremely cold and it was very windy and some very tough pin locations."

The best individual rounds came from a Ranger who wasn't on the team card though. Jeremy Gibson had his best showing of his collegiate career, finishing in eighth place after going 11-over on day one and following it up with a career best 5-over 77 on the second day which included three birdies.

"He did well in qualifying and I think he learned that relaxing and having fun is more important that putting a lot of stress on yourself. I was proud to see him work throughout the fall and continue to get better. When opportunity presented itself, he executed and played well," Payne said.

Gibson may have been the only Ranger playing as an individual, but he wasn't the only player to go low on the second day. Freshman Atharv Sharma rebounded spectacularly from a birdieless 85 on the first day to shoot a four over 76 on Tuesday for the best round from any of the Northwest competitors on the weekend. Sharma was strong on the par-fives all week, going just one-over and finished just outside of the top ten in a tie for twelfth place at 17-over.

Cole Elander joined the duo on the second day with strong rebounds from a rough day-one that saw him go 15-over with three double-bogey's or worse. Despite a slow start on his second day, Elander was able to recover after starting seven-over on his first ten holes to close the day at just six-over and played his last eight at one-under par.

"Both Cole and Atharv coming in as freshman have really become two anchors for the freshman class," Payne said. "Cole started off a little shaky, but he settled in with a birdie on one and really found his pace. Atharv, he's extremely smart and if you give him a chance to see something one or two times, he is going to figure out a way to attack it. We are fortunate to have those two guys."

Fellow freshman Caesar Ingendorf finished his tournament with consistency, although it was one of the higher two-day totals for the German this fall. After going 12-over on the first day to sit in a tie for 16^th place in the cold conditions, he found some trouble on his back-nine with a stretch of five holes where he was six over. He did finish the weekend with a pair of birdies from the opening day and still took home a tie for 26^th place in the field of over 60 golfers.

The best improvement from day one to day two came from Landon Masterson who was in a tough spot after shooting a 92 in the opening round. After a slow start out of the gate, Masterson parred his final five holes on the second day to finish eleven strokes better and move up to 45^th place after starting the day in 51^st.

Drew Dabbs rounded out the field for the Northwest men, finishing in 50^th place after going 32-over on the two days. While he did have a birdie on both days, there were also a pair of holes on each day that got away from the sophomore. The round was still his best of the season in terms of finishing place, besting a 54^th place finish at the Jim Redgate Invitational at the start of October.

Northwest wraps up the season currently ranked 31^st as a team in the NJCAA polls, just behind Hinds Community College and Northeast Mississippi Community College. Sharma is the top ranked player for Northwest, moving up to 63^rd in the country as an individual.

"I thought we had a good fall season," Payne concluded. "We moved up 21 spots in the rankings from last spring, and I like where we are headed. Now we just need to get in the lab and clean up some of these mistakes."

The tournament was also an opportunity to see all of the Mississippi schools in one place at the same time, and Payne said the conference is going to be very competitive this year, and the Rangers are right in the thick of it.

"The conference has a lot of parity, so you can have one event where you are at the top and the next be at the bottom. Consistency is going to be huge throughout the spring so really grinding out and focusing during the winter is going to be really important moving forward. At any given time, anybody can compete with anybody. It's going to make for a very interesting spring, and we are looking forward to the challenge."

The spring season will begin in early February for Northwest. You can keep up with all of the updates at nwccrangers.com or by following Ranger social media accounts.